


and then you became the moon

by deepestfathoms



Category: Six - Marlow/Moss
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels, Angels are Dicks, Angels are assholes, Animal Transformation, Aragon hides a child from the other queens: the fanfiction, Discrimination, Fallen Angels, Found Family, Gen, Heaven & Hell, Heaven lowkey sucks, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Imprisonment, Limbo, Limbo is worse though, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Religious Conflict, Religious Discussion, Scars, Suicide, Trauma, Wing Grooming, Wing torture, based on death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:49:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23033503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deepestfathoms/pseuds/deepestfathoms
Summary: The entire production of SIX is shaken to the core when one of the cast members unexpectedly kills herself. It’s shocking, yes, but everyone gets over it. They move on. They forget about her.And then something crashes into the queen’s backyard half a year later. Or, rather- someone.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 38





	and then you became the moon

February 29th. Leap year. Some people finally turning four despite looking like they’re twenty-eight. The day Joan Meutas ended her life.

She had left no note behind. There wasn’t any warning for her death. The only real clue was her growing depression and increasing isolation, but nobody really cared enough to notice or do anything about it. And thus, her body showed up on the floor of her dressing room with tears in her eyes and a bullet in her brain.

She was only twenty years old. She had been alive for one year after reincarnation. It took just one year to drive the girl over the edge.

The cast and crew of Six attended her funeral, but it felt so wrong. They were playing in a facade- none of them really liked the girl. Not enough to be obligated to show up to the service, but they all feared that nobody would even go if they didn’t.

Six months soon passed. A new pianist and MD easily filled the empty spot that was left behind. She was older and mature and liked by the cast. She didn’t stare at them longingly from afar or follow them around like a lost puppy. This woman had a good head on her shoulders. She replaced Joan’s absence and, in turn, Joan was forgotten.

And then there was a crash from the queen’s backyard.

It was necessarily the smashing sound that startled Aragon, really the sudden cacophony of dog barks that erupted from the house. She was home alone, so all them getting worked up was slightly unnerving, but she kept a level head and started hissing at them to shut up. Then, she slowly got up from the couch and crept over to the window. What she saw when she peeked through the blinds shocked her.

A girl.

A girl was crumpled in the backyard.

The dogs nearly burst outside when Aragon opened the back door. She pushed them back, not wanting them to maul the stranger just yet- maybe she wasn’t a threat. Or if she was, perhaps going out there unarmed was a terrible idea. Either way, Aragon was before the girl.

And, good lord, was she young. She had to be only eleven at best. Tangled, sun-bleached hair is gnarled around her ashen face, smoldering and smoking at the tips. Her eyes are so tired, so sad, but still retain a sterling-cerulean glow to them. She’s dressed in an old and tattered grey nightgown that barely stretches over her grimy knees. Her skin is so pale and dirty, adorned with scratches and bruises here and there, and some of her fingernails are missing. However, it wasn’t the wounds that caught Aragon’s eyes.

No, it was the matted, dirty, black-speckled white wings drooping down her back.

Just then, Aragon knows exactly what she was looking at.

An angel.

Her breath is caught in her throat in shock, eyes wide. She couldn’t believe that she was looking at a real live angel. It was incredible!

She took a small step forward and the little heavenly creature scuttled backwards with a whimper. One of her wings jerked up and attempt to shield her shaking body from harm she believes will come her way.

Once again, Aragon is frozen.

She knows that timid, wry look…

“Joan?” She whispered.

The angel’s head whipped up. The way she stared up at Aragon was an answer alone.

“Oh my lord…” Aragon muttered. “You’re- you’re an angel!”

Joan flinched away when she raises her force. She attempts to create distance between her and the queen, but her elbows buckled inwards and she crumpled to the wet grass and dirt. When Aragon approaches her, she curls into a tight little ball.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Aragon tried to calm her. She kneels down beside the girl and set a hand on her shoulder. A dull, darkened pulse beat under her fingertips, like poison clouding a clear stream. She glanced momentarily at the black splotches on the angel’s wings. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Joan peeked up at her, then glanced fearfully up at the sky, which was almost as grey as her face. Tears start to run down her cheeks and she makes the most heartbreaking cry of pain when she tries to spread her wings. She crumbles into Aragon’s arm when she lost her balance and instantly stiffened when she made contact with the queen.

It was just absolutely tragic.

“You’re hurt.” Aragon said. “Here, I’ll… I’m going to pick you up, alright? I’m going to take you inside and try to clean you off. Can I do that?”

Joan nodded wordlessly.

Carefully, Aragon scooped the young angel up into her arms. Joan doesn’t even have the strength to wrap her arms around her neck for grounding, so they just dangle limply, just like her mangled little wings.

Aragon walks back into the queen’s house, swerving around all the dogs, which sniff and yip curiously at the familiar-smelling stranger. She carries Joan up the stairs and to the bathroom, where she began to fill the tub up with hot water. She doesn’t even really process that she’s about to bathe a heavenly creature-version of the MD who killed herself until she turns off the faucet.

Joan is very shaky and very grey when she looks down at her. Her dull eyes are half open, but aren’t really seeing anything. Each breath she takes is weak and shakes her thin frame.

Just what happened to this child?

“I’m going to take your gown off now, okay?” Aragon said to her and saw a red blaze consume Joan’s cheeks. “I know, it may be a little weird, but you might feel slightly better when you’re clean. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

Still too shell shocked to speak, Joan just nods shakily.

Aragon manages to get Joan out of her filthy gown and undergarments and gently sets her into the hot water. Instantly, Joan whines and arches her spine, squirming until hands press on her shoulders and ease her into stillness.

“Easy, easy…” Aragon murmured. “I know it’s a little hot, but it’ll warm you up, honey.” She helps Joan sit up and face away from her so her back would be revealed. And what she saw made her breath catch instantaneously.

What had once been a smooth expanse of planed flesh was now a labyrinth of slices and hematomas. Puckering, obviously painful openings cross-hatched with hundreds if smaller, shallower scrapes and skins, and every single one of them looked like they were on fire.

“Oh, Joan…” Aragon murmured, gently brushing the wounds. “Oh, sweetheart, what happened to you?”

Joan’s wings curl around her shoulders in shame. The bases are so inflamed and bruised. The veins threading through her back were full of liquid fire. Every little movement stoked the flames burning in her tendons, shoveling more hot coals into her joints. 

But her wings? Her wings were just a blaze. Constantly. All the time.

“I’m going to start washing you down now, alright? Just hold still for me…”

Cleaning Joan proves to be a huge chore. Aragon sprays her down with the little shower nozzle by the faucet, much to the angel’s discomfort. She squirms and whimpers as the water beats against her open wounds and even cried out at one point. Aragon puts away the hose instantly after that.

That was a running theme with Joan during her bath- she would flinch almost every time she’s touched. She says no words, she doesn’t even ask her to stop, she just jumps and jerks, occasionally whining between her teeth. Aragon didn’t know what caused her to have such little trust, or what caused her to become so injured, but she did know that someone had definitely hurt her. 

She continued her work gently.

Aragon uses her nails to get off the tougher layers of grime and patches of dried blood on the wings, something that even she’s a little surprised about doing. Black dirt and brown blood gets underneath her fingernails, but she doesn’t care. She’s completely focused on cleaning up the young angel huddled in the tub below her.

As she’s running a hand through one of the wings, she finds several scabs littering the flesh beneath the plumage. Some feathers were even growing right out of cuts and welts, which made the queen’s stomach turn. None of the feathers looked healthy at all, so she brought out some scissors and began cutting.

Joan started crying at one point. Her tired eyes stare dejectedly at her once-beautiful quills float lazily around her. Her wings feel so bare and ugly. She whimpers.

Soon, only baby plumage remains- short, frizzy little feathers that just barely cover up the skin on her wings. It makes Joan so very uncomfortable and cry even more, and it breaks Aragon’s heart, but it had to be done.

Finally, after washing the angel’s dirty hair and cleaning her back to ward off possible infections, Aragon grabs a towel and swaddles Joan in it when she lifts her from the now-cooled water. The little angel starts to shiver almost instantly. Her heavy, wet wings hang like ten ton weights, obviously causing stress on her back from the tiny whimpers she makes, so Aragon folds them up and press them to her shoulder blades, keeping her hand there so they won’t droop again.

She carries Joan to her bedroom and sets her on the bed. Her teeth are starting to chatter, now, so Aragon quickly retrieves some soft clothes from Katherine’s room- the youngest queen probably wouldn’t notice. Hopefully.

After she’s completely dressed (holes had to be cut in the shirt for Joan’s wings so now Aragon REALLY hopes Katherine doesn’t want it back or find out about it), which is a slightly awkward process, Joan just sits quietly on the bed. She isn’t shaking as badly anymore, but there’s still fear in her eyes. Aragon sits next to her.

“What happened to you?”

Joan is quiet. Her dripping, awkwardly cut wings fold around her shoulders as if they were a protective vest.

“I died.” She whispered. It’s the first time she’s spoken since she was found. Her voice is slightly similar to her older version’s, just younger, weaker, and somehow even sadder.

“I know that, dear.” Aragon said. “I meant…”

“Was anyone sad?”

Aragon was a little shocked by her question. Joan is looking up at her with those big, glistening lamb eyes.

“I…”

“No?” Joan’s bottom lip quivers. She lowered her head and sniffles. “Okay…”

“No, Joan, no-” Aragon tried to comfort Joan, but the tears were already starting to fall. Her heart shatters as she watches the poor little girl cry. Then, without realizing it, she has Joan in her lap- she’s cradling the tiny angel and holding her so protectively against her. A feeling of motherly love blooms within her. “Shh, shh…”

Joan starts to openly weep, now. She clutched fistfuls of Aragon’s shirt, clinging for dear life.

“What did I do? What did I do?” She sobbed. “I-I just wanted someone to love me. Why doesn’t anyone love me?”

Aragon doesn’t know how to answer that, so she just continues to stroke the angel’s hair. Joan cries so hard into her chest, and her own eyes even start to water.

How could she have let this happen? She practically drove Joan to this fate, just like everyone else in the cast of the show.

She had to fix it.

“I love you.”

Joan froze. She slowly looks up at Aragon, her eyes wide.

“Y-you do?”

Aragon doesn’t even hesitate. “Yes.”

Joan’s face crumpled and she began to cry again. She says “thank you” over and over again until she becomes too weak to weep any longer. She is reduced to tired, but adorable little hiccups.

“I’m keeping you.” Aragon told the sleepy angel. She wasn’t quite sure where this proposal came from, just like the motherly affection now flowing through her, but she didn’t mind. She was going to do what she didn’t before.

“Thank you,” Joan croaked. “Thank you…”

She drifts off. Aragon creates a small palette for her on the side of her bed that can’t be see unless you were to walk to the far wall. She makes sure it’s nice and soft before setting Joan on it. The way the heavenly child nuzzles her face into the pillow makes her heart melt.

Later that evening, as Aragon is turning in for the night (she doesn’t tell the others about her otherworldly stowaway), she is visited by a glowing dove. If she hadn’t stripped an angel naked and bathed it earlier that day, she might have been more shocked.

“Who are you?” She asked.

“I am Life.” Said the dove. “I’m here for the creature.”

Aragon bristles, suddenly getting protective.

“Joan? Why?”

“It escaped.”

“Escaped?”

“Limbo.” Life said. “Suicide victims don’t get to go to heaven. They go to Limbo to think about how they took away the precious life God gave them. Not even the Lord of The Flies wants such a disgrace.” Their talons curl around the wardrobe they’re perched on. “That’s where that _thing_ went. And then they had the audacity to let itself fall.”

Aragon’s eyebrows furrowed. “Fall?”

Life stared into her eyes, their own a piercing deep green.

“The creature you are harboring is a fallen angel. An unholy being. I’m here to put it back into limbo. If you keep it, I can’t promise God will see you the same way. Do you really want that on your clean soul, Catalina?”

Aragon looked in the direction of where Joan was still sleeping and said, “Yes.”

Life ruffles their feathers. It’s obvious they aren’t used to being stood up tp.

“You’re going to keep it?”

“Yes.” Aragon said again. “Isn’t there a way for her to be granted access to heaven? Won’t you let me help her do that?”

Life considers it. 

“I suppose she could get her wings back. She could heal her sin by helping humanity.”

“By helping _me_.” Aragon said. “She can do that. And she will. Just give her a chance.”

Life sighed. “Fine. But the moment she makes a mistake, I’m taking her back to her prison.” They spread their wings. “Don’t mess it up.”

With a flash of pure white light, the dove is gone. Aragon is left alone.

Well, not completely.

She checks on Joan and finds her still asleep. She smiled at the way the angel nuzzles her finger when she brushes her cheek.

For better or for worse, she now has an angel under her care. And, honestly, she can’t wait for what’s to come.


End file.
